Is America ready for a biological terrorist attack?

According to the CDC, the United States is unprepared to deal with a biological attack. Much of the needed equipment is not available. Pathogen sensors are not in place to detect that a biological attack has taken place.

New medicines are needed. In combating terrorist attacks, treatment is a more practical approach than prevention; yet many biological agents are extremely difficult to treat with existing medicines once the symptoms appear. In addition, many of the most important prophylactic drugs have limited shelf lives and cannot be stockpiled. Moreover, their effectiveness could be compromised by a sophisticated attacker.

Among weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons are more destructive than chemical weapons, including nerve gas. In certain circumstances, biological weapons can be as devastating as nuclear ones—a few kilograms of anthrax can kill as many people as a Hiroshima-size nuclear weapon.

Local emergency medical response capability is limited. A number of localities define a “mass casualty event” as one with more than a dozen casualties, far fewer than an intentional biological release could cause. Emergency room capacity in major cities can be overwhelmed all too quickly by more common emergencies. Much emergency medical capability is also located in downtown areas that may be targeted for attack. CDC

Al-Qaeda seeks WMD, report says America is unprepared.

(Gee, is the left going to go nuts when their boy starts warning of potential WND attacks? Of course not, he’s not George Bush.)

The United States has not done enough to protect the country against the threat of weapons of mass destruction even as Al-Qaeda appears intent on staging a large-scale attack, reports said. A bipartisan panel warned that the government had failed to adopt measures to counter the danger posed by extremists using WMD, saying the administration lacked plans for a rapid response to a possible biological attack.

“Nearly a decade after September 11, 2001, one year after our original report, and one month after the Christmas Day bombing attempt, the United States is failing to address several urgent threats, especially bioterrorism,” said former senator Bob Graham, chair of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

He said that Washington no longer had “the luxury of a slow learning curve, when we know Al-Qaeda is interested in bioweapons.”The findings came as a former CIA officer wrote in a report that Al-Qaeda’s leaders have been working methodically since the 1990s to secure weapons that could inflict massive bloodshed. READ MORE: BREITBART

Islamic cleric warns: 4 lbs. of anthrax carried by a terrorist into the U.S. from Mexico will kill 330,000 Americans in one hour.